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How much do voters know?

Irrationality on policy issues transcends both party lines and opinions on the president. | Reuters

Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones said the seeming inconsistencies can come from the fact that voters “probably don’t have a whole lot of detailed and specific information about the policies that are being put forward.”

“When people evaluate presidents on certain issues, they’re probably starting with a pretty global view of how he’s doing and then adjust that for how he’s doing in a particular area,” Jones said. Applying that explanation to the drop in U.S. military confidence, Jones suggested: “It may stem in part from a global view, that things aren’t going that well in the U.S.”

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Republican presidential strategist Mary Matalin gave a similar explanation for why public opinion often adds up to something different than the sum of its parts. As voters take stock of public events, there’s often tension between their feelings about granular policy topics and the overarching principles that encompass those issues.

Like Jensen, she pointed to the debate over health care, suggesting that voters’ support for goals like containing the cost of care ended up getting overwhelmed by their distaste for government power – giving rise to an apparent contradiction.

“In large measure, they’re often not contradictions,” she said. “There was a time when health care, Obamacare, just transcended health care and it became a proxy for counterproductive government expansion. When that flipped from coverage, or cost-cutting of coverage – all the issues that Obama said it was, which people like … it has now transcended that.”

For voters and politicians and analysts who would prefer to see a more logical, coherent set of public responses to public problems, the good news is this: much of the day-to-day variation in policy polling will not, ultimately, have a major impact on the result of the 2012 election.

Indeed, the sheer irrationality and volatility of voters’ views on most issues ends up giving disproportionate weight to the few issues where their opinions are strong and basically stable.

In 2012, that would not necessarily include the auto bailout or the intervention in Libya, or even gas prices as an issue in itself. It would include the larger state of the economy – and maybe nothing else.

“If the economy is bad, that’s going to be the single issue and it’s almost like nothing else matters,” Jones said.

And besides, said Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown, if voters seem to the political class like they are temperamental or unreasonable, it’s sort of beside the point. Americans may change their policy views as they learn more or as events change, or for no good reason at all. But in the end, those views are the only metric in electoral politics that really matters.

“Just because someone’s not familiar with something doesn’t mean they won’t give you their opinion. And just because they don’t know a lot about it – their vote still counts as much as someone who does know a lot about it,” Brown said.

“In the business of politics, voters are always right. Just like on Wall Street, the market is always right,” he said. “You don’t fight the market.”

Readers' Comments (366)

“The first lesson you learn as a pollster is that people are stupid,” said Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm. “I tell a client trying to make sense of numbers on a poll that are inherently contradictory that at least once a week.”

Well, yes Tom.

I offer the Progressive ruin of the once great state of California as the one and only exhibit needed to prove the case.

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

I think most voter's know there is little a President can do on a day to day basis. But when Obama says things like, "energy prices would necessarily soar", or he's "not a concerned about the price of gas as he is how quickly it rises", or his energy secretary says the US "needs gas at $8 or $9 / gallon, like Europe", just to be fair...that's scary. And his disdain for anything gas-driven (unless, of course, he's in front of a bunch of union workers at an auto plant), is so far from reality right now that it can't help but signal higher gas prices and tighter budgets for most Americans.

What goes around comes around. For the last years of the Bush administration the Dems harped everyday that the economy and higher gas prices were Bush's fault. HAHAHA now the people aren't stupid, they are only telling pollsters what they have been taught by the left to say. Only now, it's Obama fault not Bush.

What goes around comes around. For the last years of the Bush administration the Dems harped everyday that the economy and higher gas prices were Bush's fault. HAHAHA now the people aren't stupid, they are only telling pollsters what they have been taught by the left to say. Only now, it's Obama fault not Bush.

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

I think this is another desparate attempt by the left to say that they are smarter than everyone else and we should listen to them. Sorry, media. People don't trust you any more than they trust Congress. People have also started paying attention to politics in greater numbers because of the economic difficulties they're living with. Obama has failed us on energy policy, economic policy, foreign policy, and even his 'successes' don't look that way if you look at the results instead of intentions. Obama could lower gas prices if he really wanted to just as Bush did in his day, not that liberal media would give him credit for it anymore than they'll call out Obama on his policy. Beyond 10 years out, that poorly crafted piece of legislation known as Obamacare will add trillions annually to the deficit - a far cry from cutting costs as promised because it doesn't address real cost drivers in medicine except to add insult to injury.

Whoever the GOP nominee is gets my vote. The leftist media doesn't admit this, but the national debt has accelerated at an unprecedented rate under Obama, and it wasn't pretty to start with. It now EQUALS our entire GDP. Reported first in the UK, because the news media here isn't honest enough to do so. This debt doesn't even count the fact that things like Obamacare won't add into the total debt until all parts of the law go into effect, and you can count on the fact that it will be much more expensive than projected, just like any other government program. To top off the horrible debt, all branches of the federal government get an automatic 10% increase in budget each year, based upon spending of the previous year. This is since the 1974 Budget Reform Act. Any proposal to lower the automatic increases are met with cries of "Draconian cuts!" from the left. It doesn't take a mathematician to realize this is unsustainable growth and will quickly turn us into the EU if we aren't already. We can't afford more of Barack Obama.

If this is news, consider your sources. You've got to read both sides because both sides leave stuff out.

Ok I challenge anyone to post something that doesn't have one finger-pointing, name-calling element in it. What should the President do about gas prices? What kind of leadership do we want to see? Is he to just shrug his shoulders and say "well I accused the previous President when prices were high but now I realize, as President, I can't do anything about it." I'd like to see some leadership from him. Somehow, it seems, that offends people.

Possum and squirrel taste really good with some BBQ sauce. You liberal/progressive/socialist/communist/OWS/99%ers/union thugs democrats ought to try it sometime. Come on down and we'll fry ya'll up a batch. LOL